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Africa is embarking upon a period in which its political, economic and social outlook will transform. The European Investment Bank is a key part of the EU toolbox that for decades has helped make the partnership between Africa and Europe stronger. We aim to maximise our potential as the EU bank, so that we can join our African partners in addressing today’s critical challenges together and embrace our opportunities. This publication lays out our track record in Africa and our vision for our future partnership with the continent.

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Africa’s challenges and opportunities

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The African youth boom

Among its more than one billion people, Africa counts the youngest, fastest-growing middle class in the world. With a median age 14 years younger than any other continent, Africa is embarking upon a period in which its political, economic and social outlook will transform. In ten years, growth in its workforce will exceed that of the rest of the world combined. The benefit of incorporating this labour force into the global economy could be unparalleled.

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Green growth

Climate change intensifies Africa’s challenges. Africa suffers from the impact of climate change, but it contributes less than 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. But because of the relatively low level of industrialisation represented by its small contribution to global warming, Africa could in fact leapfrog directly into a greener future. This green growth must also be inclusive, expanding access to basic goods such as clean energy, water and mobility, as well as education and healthcare, to ensure equal opportunities.

Africans are at the start of a new and transformative contribution to the global economy. This publication tells the story of the European Investment Bank’s part in supporting this great movement.

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Africa and the EIB: The story of a partnership

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The European Investment Bank has operated in Africa since 1965. Since then, the EU bank has invested €59 billion in 52 African countries, supporting infrastructure projects, innovative firms and renewable energy schemes, the public sector and private companies from microenterprises to the largest multinationals. The European Investment Bank is a key part of the EU toolbox that for decades has helped make the partnership between these two continents stronger.

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The European Investment Bank is the only development financial institution that is exclusively EU-owned and, therefore, bound by treaty to implement EU policies and standards in its African investments. In 2020 alone, we:

• signed a record €5 billion in projects
• signed almost 60 projects, a 50% increase on the previous year
• 71% of our sub-Saharan Africa financing benefits fragile states or least-developed countries.

Our contribution to the Team Europe COVID-19 response, set up by the European Commission, is mobilising up to €7.3 billion in global commitments for our partner countries. Partnerships like this are essential to answering such a global challenge, and the Team Europe model is now the foundation of much of what we do, even beyond pandemic-related investment.

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Concrete solutions 

Effective solutions for Africa's most pressing challenges

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Accordion

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Climate change

Our investments contribute to the building of the infrastructure that helps mitigate climate change and allows Africans to adapt to its unavoidable impact on their lives. For example, solar-powered mobile phone towers like the ones financed in Guinea with our $30 million loan extend the network, but they also cut out diesel power.

Climate change and conflicts are key drivers of forced displacement. Of the 33.4 million new displacements in 2019, 23.9 million were weather-related and 8.5 million were due to conflict and violence. Forecasts estimate that by 2050, climate change could forcibly displace up to 200 million people, in addition to the anticipated 150 million internal rural-to-urban climate migrants by the same date.

Resilience

In 2016, we launched our flagship Economic Resilience Initiative for the Western Balkans and Europe’s Southern Neighbourhood (North Africa and the Middle East). Under this initiative, 60 projects have been approved for €5.83 billion in financing.

Key impacts of our Resilience Initiative include:

• lending to 11 363 smaller businesses and mid-caps, helping sustain 218 200 jobs
• creation of 8 806 new permanent jobs, with 223 270 jobs in the construction phase
• safer water for 4.5 million people and improved sanitation for a further 6.5 million
• better urban and rail transport for 420 000 passengers daily
• 6 600 new student places in higher education.

We stepped up our activities to enhance economic opportunity and access to social services in sub-Saharan Africa, too. The €800 million ACP Migration Package, launched in 2016, offers finance to the public and private sectors with a focus on resilience.

Conflict sensitivity

We are seeking new ways to help countries in Africa deal with conflict and extreme fragility. In 2020, we increased the proportion of smaller, higher-impact, riskier operations in the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific Region to 76% of our financing with a total of over €1.7 billion going to fragile or conflict-affected contexts. In the European Union’s Eastern and Southern Neighbourhoods, 2020 signatures in the same category of countries was €3.8 billion, representing 82% of total signatures.

COVID-19

We joined the COVAX initiative, investing €600 million in the innovative financing instrument that enables poorer countries to access donor-funded doses of COVID-19 vaccines. We invested in conjunction with the European Commission’s €100 million grant.

We tailored our COVID-19 response to the needs of individual African countries. Within a few weeks of the start of the lockdown, we signed a €200 million loan to Morocco (which may increase to €280 million) to pay for medical devices, supplies and equipment. The flexible loan allows Morocco to use the funds for any COVID-19-related health purchases. The money reached Morocco in record time, with €100 million disbursed within a month.

A special focus on women and girls

In 2019, the European Investment Bank was the first multilateral development bank to join the 2X Challenge, a recognised industry standard for identifying investments that contribute to gender equality. At the same time, we launched SheInvest, our own initiative to mobilise €1 billion of gender-responsive investment across Africa (which was increased to €2 billion in 2021).

Digitalisation

Digital solutions have a profound impact on most parts of the modern economy. They facilitate climate change mitigation in other sectors (e.g. energy, transport, buildings and agriculture) through smart and efficient technologies or ICT-enabled services. Digital technologies are also a powerful catalyst for the active participation and economic empowerment of women and girls in the economic, social and political spheres and for the reduction of inequalities. Over the last five years, our digital economy lending mobilised €2.5 billion in investment across Africa.

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Hear from an EIB expert

Listen to Maria Shaw Barragan talk about the EIB’s support for Africa. The Bank’s goals are to help fight poverty, exclusion, and inequality, as well as support innovative green growth.

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What we will do

We aim to maximise our potential for delivering EU investments that support a better future for Africa, introducing a series of new steps in how we organise our operations, listen to the aims and aspirations of our African partners and work to meet their demands.

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Maximising impact with a dedicated development setup

We propose to bring all the EIB’s activities outside the European Union together into a dedicated organisational setup within the EIB Group. This will help maximise our development impact under Team Europe. By harnessing a range of resources in a common framework, we will create a dedicated EU partner to finance key priorities of the European Union and its partner countries, while continuing to generate synergies with our operations beyond the European Union.

Impact through proximity: Creation of regional hubs

We are increasing staff presence on the ground in Africa so that we can listen actively and attentively to the needs of our partners. This will boost our capacity to generate new projects through formal and informal contacts in the business community and with local ministries. In turn, this will enable us to implement more projects on the ground, monitor them more closely and, consequently, disburse funds faster.

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Resilience

Our refined approach builds on our Resilience Initiative, identifying the following areas as particularly suitable for addressing migration and forced displacement.

• Climate adaptation projects that build the resilience of vulnerable communities.
• Targeted urban development and social infrastructure in regions likely to receive large numbers of climate-related rural-to-urban migrants or large numbers of refugees
• Financial inclusion and private sector investment to support job creation and access to finance for those whose livelihoods are most precarious or at risk
• Contribution to social outcomes and impacts such as social inclusion, gender equality and the prevention of social exclusion, disenfranchisement, violence and conflict.

Deepening partnership with the African Development Bank

Over the past five years, our shared portfolio with the African Development Bank Group has grown to €3.4 billion, leveraging a total €10.2 billion in investment for 26 projects across the continent. In early 2021, we signed a Joint Partnership Action Plan with the African Development Bank to strengthen this cooperation and develop further our shared project pipeline in:

• climate action and environmental sustainability
• transformative large-scale infrastructure
• ICT infrastructure and services
• financial inclusion aimed at the empowerment of girls and women
• education and training
• the health sector

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Development Survey

With its first results due in the course of 2022, the EIB Development Survey will talk to African people across the continent. The aim is to generate bottom-up information about development needs in Africa that can be used to identify issues affecting African people and help define our response.